Science is not a fight, it’s a search for truth. If Margulis’s theory is proven true, then accepting it as a mainstream theory is obligatory. That it might open the door for already-confused people to get confused in yet another way is not a strike against it.
Science isn’t a fight. Getting science taught properly in schools IS a fight (which we are losing, at least in America. Close to 50% of us don’t believe in evolution).
Science isn’t a fight. Getting science taught properly in schools IS a fight (which we are losing, at least in America. Close to 50% of us don’t believe in evolution).
Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process, 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so]?
The data for that suggests that since 1982 American attitudes have been almost unchanged except that the percentage answering 2 has steadily increased with most of that being apparently accounted for in a drop of those with no opinion. I don’t know what exactly that shows, but it is difficult to argue from that data that “we are losing” for most definitions of “we” and “losing”.
Of course, it would be naive to assume that most people who give technically correct answers to such questions in polls have any real clue about the issues involved. They just answer the way they intuitively perceive to be high-status and ideologically correct; I’m sure most of them would easily change their opinion if these factors changed.
The primary reason people in the general public get worked up about evolution one way or another is ideological baiting and status concerns. The idea that it’s somehow important for the common folk to have a correct view of scientific theories that have nothing to do with their regular business strikes me as rather absurd.
Science is not a fight, it’s a search for truth. If Margulis’s theory is proven true, then accepting it as a mainstream theory is obligatory. That it might open the door for already-confused people to get confused in yet another way is not a strike against it.
Science isn’t a fight. Getting science taught properly in schools IS a fight (which we are losing, at least in America. Close to 50% of us don’t believe in evolution).
If one looks at the Gallup data one sees a slight trend against creationism in the US.
Since the early 1980s Gallup has asked:
The data for that suggests that since 1982 American attitudes have been almost unchanged except that the percentage answering 2 has steadily increased with most of that being apparently accounted for in a drop of those with no opinion. I don’t know what exactly that shows, but it is difficult to argue from that data that “we are losing” for most definitions of “we” and “losing”.
Of course, it would be naive to assume that most people who give technically correct answers to such questions in polls have any real clue about the issues involved. They just answer the way they intuitively perceive to be high-status and ideologically correct; I’m sure most of them would easily change their opinion if these factors changed.
The primary reason people in the general public get worked up about evolution one way or another is ideological baiting and status concerns. The idea that it’s somehow important for the common folk to have a correct view of scientific theories that have nothing to do with their regular business strikes me as rather absurd.